CHAPTER FOUR
The screen door squeaked like it was determined to announce my departure.
“Shhh,” Teddy whispered, already halfway down the back steps with a flashlight swinging from his hand. His grin looked wicked in the glow, as if sneaking me out at midnight was the best idea he’d ever had.
“You’re going to get us grounded,” I hissed, tiptoeing after him.
“Worth it.” He kicked off his sneakers the second his feet hit the cool, packed sand of Seaglass Beach. “Come on, slowpoke. The stars won’t wait.”
I wanted to argue, but the ocean stretched out ahead of us, dark and endless, and I forgot how to be annoyed. We plopped down on an old blanket he’d dragged from his mom’s closet, the sea air tangling my hair into a thousand knots.
It didn’t matter. Nothing seemed to matter when I was with him.
“See that one?” He pointed at the brightest star just above the horizon. “That’s where I’m going. Greece, Italy, maybe even Australia. I’m going to see all of it.”
“That’s a star, Teddy.”
He shot me a lopsided smile over his shoulder. “Then I’ll go to space.”
I hugged my knees to my chest, heart thumping in the strange, wonderful way it always did when Teddy said things like that. “Fine. You go. I’ll stay here and write about it so us normal people can live vicariously through you.”
Teddy rolled onto his side, propped up on one elbow. “Then we’ll make the perfect team.”
“Promise you’ll always come back?” I asked softly.
Teddy reached over and hooked his pinky around mine. “Promise. You can’t get rid of me that easy, Margot Wade.”
The ocean roared, the stars twinkled overhead, and for several years, I believed him.
???
PRESENT DAY
I wrapped my coat tighter and continued hustling down Main Street. The brown paper bag in my hands swayed and crumpled beside me, and I hugged it to my chest in hopes it would conserve the warmth.
Although it was well into nightfall, the sidewalk still bustled with tourists clutching their hot chocolates or ciders and milling in and out of shops.
During the off-season, the businesses shut their doors early to save money.
Now that it was October, many of the windows glowed and poured amber light onto the leaf-coated street, beckoning onlookers with the promise of central heating and one-of-a-kind souvenirs.
In my seven years away, I’d forgotten about Bluebell Cove’s certain kind of magic.
I could see it in the faces of visitors, new and seasonal, young and old, as their eyes sparkled with something indescribable.
That feeling—the esoteric, warming feeling that seeped into our pores—was like a radiant cord that tied strangers, friends, and family together in an intangible bond that could only be described as magic.
The heel of my boots thunked against the cobblestone as the soles crunched through leaves and I maneuvered onto Maple Street.
I was on a mission, and nothing could stop me.
Not the terraced, Victorian homes with bay windows that gleamed orange, or the creative autumn decorations that poured out across each porch like something out of a novel.
Although they were no Bluebell Lane, with their manicured gardens and professionally-decorated-stoops, Maple Street had the inexplicable charm that was exclusive to the Cove.
That was why, even on an insignificant Wednesday evening, people still milled up and down the sidewalks and marveled at the giant white oaks and pastel-hued homes.
I pushed open the picket fence and barreled up the path. Although I’d been determined to surprise her, a round of excited barks emanating from inside gave me away.
The door cracked as my feet landed on the porch.
Georgie raised an eyebrow. Her black lab, Easton, whined from behind her knees. I presented the brown paper bag like the humble offering it was.
She sniffed. “What’s that?”
“Dinner. And a chocolate shake to-go.”
Her eyes lit up, and she promptly directed me inside.
Georgie wrenched it from my hands the second the door was locked, shuffling back to her living room like a gremlin.
I scratched Easton behind the ears until he was satisfied and pulled my boots off.
She’d already torn into the bag, hunched over the coffee table, when my socks sunk into her new shag rug.
I’d desperately tried to dissuade her from the purchase, but she said the clementine color reminded her of her grandmother, and she was thrilled to finally have some profits to spend.
“If this is your apology,” she said, mouth half-full with chicken pot pie, “Then I accept.”
I laughed and plucked my shake from the bag before she could get her ravenous paws on it. “Didn’t Rhett teach you how to cook?”
Georgie shrugged. “I mean, technically. But just because I can doesn’t mean I want to.”
I sighed and dropped onto the couch. Easton grunted and shifted until his head was in my lap.
One of the movies from her rom-com collection played on the screen—something sappy that probably involved weepy love confessions and an overly dramatic chase-to-the-airport scene. I rolled my eyes and took a swig of my shake.
Georgie, positioned on the other end of Easton, sniffled and wiped her cheeks with her sweater sleeves.
She turned to me and said, “This part always gets me.”
“Right,” I mumbled, studying how she managed to simultaneously cry and shovel food.
“You know, I recall a time when you loved these movies.”
“Yeah, well,” I replied, “Things change.”
More accurately, people change. I could barely remember that Margot anymore.
Georgie wiggled a fry at me. “I wouldn’t be too sure. Someone looked more than a little flustered to have ol’ Teddy back home.”
I bit down on my straw and stared at the carpet fibers glowing neon in the television light.
“Wow. I knew it.” She kicked her feet up on the coffee table and sank back into the couch. “After all these years, you’re still in lo—”
“I am not,” I snapped.
Georgie raised an eyebrow at me. I wrapped a throw blanket around my shoulders and propped myself against the back cushion, absentmindedly dragging a hand across Easton’s fur. He yawned and stretched, only to fall right back to sleep.
I’d learned the hard way that Georgie was relentless. If I didn’t give her a plausible excuse now, she’d never let it go.
“Okay, admittedly, it was weird.”
She leaned in. I cleared my throat.
So far, I thought I was doing a pretty good job selling it.
“It’s been seven years since Teddy and I last spoke, Georgie. Remember how weird it was when we started hanging out again? Now multiply that by about twenty.”
She squinted at me. “But it wasn’t seven years. You saw each other at my grandmother’s funeral four years ago.”
Oh, yes—the painfully awkward trip that I’d wanted to block out of my memory for the foreseeable future. Seeing Wes and Serena, the duo that completed our childhood group of friends, was nothing compared to sitting next to Teddy for an hour and pretending like I wasn’t dying a little inside.
Even worse, he brought his girlfriend.
“That was a haze,” I lied.
I failed as Georgie’s friend that day. It still kept me up some nights.
She emptied her milkshake and set it on the table with a hollow tap. “Still—I mean, it’s just Teddy. You guys didn’t even date for that long, right?”
My chest tightened. “Just a few months.”
Georgie had no idea about the years spent with a stomach full of butterflies, or how often I was jealous of the ease of their bond.
They were both dreamers, even if their eyes were set on entirely different worlds.
As much as I wanted to join them up there in the clouds, I was usually back on planet earth making sure they didn’t drift too far and hurt themselves.
Someone had to.
“That’s it, right?” she said, sending me a skeptical look. “Just prom, a few months before graduation—nothing else?”
I pressed my lips together and fought to keep my voice steady. “That’s it.”
“Huh.” Georgie stared at the ceiling for a second, as if debating whether or not to press me further, before sighing. “Just wanted to make sure I had all the facts,” she murmured, clearly not entirely sold.
I’d bought myself another day, at least.
Then my mind wandered back to the diner, and the strange way Teddy reacted to my prodding. He was usually an open book. Even with seven years of separation, we still grew up together—the rare moments he held something back were like the glaring beacon on Bluebell Point’s lighthouse.
“Something’s wrong,” I muttered. “With Teddy.”
Georgie groaned teasingly and paused her movie. “You mean besides the fact that he’s still oh-so-handsome?”
I glared as she wiggled her eyebrows.
“No. I mean—” I rubbed my temples in an effort to hide my heating cheeks. I couldn’t go and start thinking about his broadened shoulders and the deepened timbre of his voice. “That’s beside the point. When I asked about his piece for Travel and Taste, didn’t he seem… standoffish?”
“Maybe he’s tired. Maybe it’s stressful being back home as a semi-famous person. It could be any number of things, Margot.”
Of course Georgie would give him the benefit of the doubt.
But maybe she was right—I could’ve been reading into things or drawing conclusions based on my frustration. Candice had been telling me I needed to try hopeful skepticism. Why did I give her such a large portion of my paychecks if I wasn’t going to listen once and a while?
“Sure,” I replied, the best I could muster.
Georgie hummed in relief and gleefully unpaused her movie. Though I knew she’d watched this one at least twelve times, she still teared up as the music crescendoed and Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson finally kissed in a highly unrealistic scene on Manhattan Bridge.
Just like Teddy, she was always so unguarded—to life, to new experiences, and even to the inevitable heartbreaks. They embraced it all with open arms.
I often wondered how that felt. Did they have a greater depth of emotion? Was it easier to live while focusing on the warmth of the sun instead of the thunderclouds in the distance? And when they got hurt, no matter how greatly, did they think it was all worthwhile?
My phone buzzed, and I quickly wriggled out of my blanket.
It had been remarkably dry since I decided to blow up my life in New York. No one messaged—not old assistants, or authors, or friends from work that never became more than acquaintances. I hadn’t expected anything more, though, and that prevented me from being too disappointed.
I frowned at the screen.
Mom: We need to talk. Urgent.
She wasn’t the type to live with any sort of urgency. Alarm clocks on her days off were the bane of her existence, and she never felt the need to worry about school schedules. I stared at it for a few more seconds until the words floated in my vision and burned my eyes.
“Something wrong?” Georgie asked, having crouched by her television cabinet to sift through some more DVDs.
I shut it off. “It’s probably nothing,” I replied with a shrug. “What’re we watching next? What level of sappiness are we talkin’?”
She pursed her lips and cocked her head at the disk in her hand. “Maybe a six?”
“So it’s really an eight.”
Georgie grinned as she popped it in the player. “I’m gonna make some hot chocolate. Want any?”
“I haven’t even finished this.” I held up my shake and waved it at her with raised brows. “And you’re a menace. Have you had your blood sugar checked recently?”
“Shut up.” She paused at the foyer entryway. “Rhett made me go last week,” she grumbled before shuffling to the kitchen.
I laughed and scratched behind Easton’s ears. He burrowed further into my lap and sighed in his sleep like he’d have bills to pay when he woke up.
No matter how much I tried to shake it, that text swam through my mind and steadily began to turn my stomach.
I’d successfully managed to eschew intentional one-on-one time with my mom since I’d crash-landed home—most of that due to her long hours at the diner, and some of it thanks to my expert avoidance tactics.
Perhaps she finally wanted to get a straight answer about why I was suddenly occupying my childhood-bedroom-turned-storage-unit. Maybe it was something unfathomably worse.
Neither gave me any sort of comfort.